ai weiwei
first intro’d to Ai (eye wayway) in in Laura Poitras‘ the art of dissent (panda bears et al w/Jacob Applebaum)..
june 2015 – the art of dissent [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmW7oTXgtQ8]
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/opinion/the-art-of-dissent.html?_r=0
adding page this day:
Nicolas Berggruen (@NBerggruen) tweeted at 9:06 AM – 24 Apr 2017 :
Chinese artist-activist @aiww at @Qatar_Museums ‘Today we have more fences than ever’
https://t.co/R5DaJyySqQ @TheNationalUAE (http://twitter.com/NBerggruen/status/856524725647949824?s=17)“I don’t care what they call me. I never wanted to be called anything,”
labels ness
“I have a lot of curiosity,” he says. “I have a habit to document something I witness but is larger than I can understand.”
“Today we have more fences than ever,” says Ai. “People are trying to separate and they try to picture others as a potential danger, trying to divide the people as different groups. I think this is a really dangerous condition, for politicians to use this kind of hatred.”
He is also finishing a documentary called Human Flow, which takes a hard look at the global refugee crisis. The United Nations estimates 65.3 million people were displaced by conflict and persecution in 2015 alone, a record number. Ai set out to meet some of them, travelling to more than 40 refugee camps in two years.
refugee camps ness..
They’re part of us, we are part of them – there’s no way we can escape this,” he says of the refugees. “There’s no way you can turn your eyes away, to say: ‘I don’t see them, it’s not my problem.’ This is not possible. We have to help them.”
indeed.. a nother way for all of us.. has to be all of us..
Ai’s own experience as a refugee provides some insight into the emotion behind his recent work. In 1958, the year after he was born, the Communist Party of China denounced his father, poet Ai Qing, as an enemy of the people and banned him from writing. The family ended up in exile in labour camps in Xinjiang province. As a boy, Ai watched as his father cleaned toilets in the summer and broke ice in winter. He says that though his dad was not allowed to be a poet, his life was poetry.
The family returned to Beijing in 1976. Ai studied animation and moved to New York City in the 1980s. He went back to China in 1993, where he supported experimental artists, fought for human rights and investigated government corruption.
In 2011, he was arrested and detained for 81 days without charge. He was later accused of owing tax and failing to pay fines. After his release he remained under surveillance and was not allowed to leave China until 2015.
“The system there is very much aggressive and brutal,” says Ai. But he continued to create and inspire through his art and activism. He now uses social media to get his message out.
“I don’t think I’d be who I am today without social media,” he says. “Today is very different. You can express yourself. It’s possible to have your voice heard.”
well.. not quite yet for everyone.. begs a mech.. to listen to all the voices..
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find/follow Ai:
Instagram: http://instagram.com/aiww
plan to spend part of today here…
Ai Weiwei (Chinese: 艾未未; pinyin: Ài Wèiwèi,); born 28 August 1957 in Beijing) is a Chinese Contemporary artist and activist. His father’s (Ai Qing) original surname was written Jiang (蔣). Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadiumfor the 2008 Olympics.[4] As a political activist, he has been highly and openly critical of the Chinese Government’s stance on democracy and human rights. He has investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of so-called “tofu-dreg schools” in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011, following his arrest at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, he was held for 81 days without any official charges being filed; officials alluded to their allegations of “economic crimes
Early life and work
Ai’s father was the Chinese poet Ai Qing, who was denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement. In 1958, the family was sent to a labour camp in Beidahuang, Heilongjiang, when Ai was one year old. They were subsequently exiled to Shihezi, Xinjiang in 1961, where they lived for 16 years. Upon Mao Zedong’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, the family returned to Beijing in 1976.
In 1978, Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy and studied animation. In 1978, he was one of the founders of the early avant garde art group the “Stars”, together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Zhong Acheng and Qu Leilei. The group disbanded in 1983, yet Ai participated in regular Stars group shows, The Stars: Ten Years, 1989 (Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong and Taipei), and a retrospective exhibition in Beijing in 2007: Origin Point (Today Art Museum, Beijing
From 1981 to 1993, he lived in the United States. For the first few years, Ai lived in Philadelphia and San Francisco, he studied English at the University of Pennsylvania and Berkeley. Later, he moved to New York City. He studied briefly at Parsons School of Design. Ai attended the Art Students League of New York from 1983 to 1986, where he studied with Bruce Dorfman, Knox Martin and Richard Pousette-Dart. He later dropped out of school, and made a living out of drawing street portraits and working odd jobs. During this period, he gained exposure to the works of Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns, and began creating conceptual art by altering readymade objects.
Ai befriended beat poet Allen Ginsberg while living in New York, following a chance meeting at a poetry reading where Ginsberg read out several poems about China. Ginsberg had travelled to China and met with Ai’s father, the noted poet Ai Qing, and consequently Ginsberg and Ai became friends.
When he was living in the East Village (from 1983 to 1993), Ai carried a camera with him all the time and would take pictures of his surroundings wherever he was. The resulting collection of photos were later selected and is now known as the New York Photographs.
At the same time, Ai became fascinated by blackjack card games and frequented Atlantic City casinos. He is still regarded in gambling circles as a top tier professional blackjack player according to an article published on blackjackchamp.com.
n 1993, Ai returned to China after his father became ill. He helped establish the experimental artists’ Beijing East Village and co-published a series of three books about this new generation of artists with Chinese curator Feng Boyi: Black Cover Book (1994), White Cover Book (1995), and Gray Cover Book (1997).[21]
In 1999, Ai moved to Caochangdi, in the northeast of Beijing, and built a studio house – his first architectural project. Due to his interest in architecture, he founded the architecture studio FAKE Design, in 2003. In 2000, he co-curated the art exhibition Fuck Off with curator Feng Boyi in Shanghai, China.
Ai is married to artist Lu Qing, and has a son from an extramarital relationship.
In 2005, Ai was invited to start blogging by Sina Weibo, the biggest internet platform in China. He posted his first blog on 19 November. For four years, he “turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary, criticism of government policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and autobiographical writings.” The blog was shut down by Sina on 28 May 2009. Ai then turned to Twitter and wrote prolifically on the platform, claiming at least eight hours online every day. He wrote almost exclusively in Chinese using the account @aiww. As of 31 December 2013, Ai has declared that he would stop tweeting but the account remains active in forms of retweets and Instagram posts.
Ai supported the Amnesty International petition for Iranian filmmaker Hossein Rajabian and his brother, musician Mehdi Rajabian and released the news on his Twitter pages.
Citizens’ Investigation on Sichuan earthquake student casualties
Ten days after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province on 12 May 2008, Ai led a team to survey and film the post-quake conditions in various disaster zones. In response to the government’s lack of transparency in revealing names of students who perished in the earthquake due to substandard school campus constructions, Ai recruited volunteers online and launched a “Citizens’ Investigation” to compile names and information of the student victims. On 20 March 2009, he posted a blog titled “Citizens’ Investigation” and wrote: “To remember the departed, to show concern for life, to take responsibility, and for the potential happiness of the survivors, we are initiating a “Citizens’ Investigation.” We will seek out the names of each departed child, and we will remember them.”
As of 14 April 2009, the list had accumulated 5,385 names. Ai published the collected names as well as numerous articles documenting the investigation on his blog which was shut down by Chinese authorities in May 2009. He also posted his list of names of schoolchildren who died on the wall of his office at FAKE Design in Beijing.
Ai suffered headaches and claimed he had difficulty concentrating on his work since returning from Chengdu in August 2009, where he was beaten by the police for trying to testify for Tan Zuoren, a fellow investigator of the shoddy construction and student casualties in the earthquake. On 14 September 2009, Ai was diagnosed to be suffering internal bleeding in a hospital in Munich, Germany, and the doctor arranged for emergency brain surgery. The cerebral hemorrhageis believed to be linked to the police attack.
According to the Financial Times, in an attempt to force Ai to leave the country, two accounts used by him had been hacked in a sophisticated attack on Google in China dubbed Operation Aurora, their contents read and copied; his bank accounts were investigated by state security agents who claimed he was under investigation for “unspecified suspected crimes”.
Shanghai studio controversy
In November 2010, Ai was placed under house arrest by the Chinese police. He said this was to prevent the planned party marking the demolition of his newly built Shanghai studio.
The building was designed and built by Ai upon encouragement and persuasion from a “high official [from Shanghai]” as part of a new cultural area designated by Shanghai Municipal authorities; Ai would have used it as a studio and to teach architecture courses. But now Ai has been accused of erecting the structure without the necessary planning permission and a demolition notice has been ordered, even though, Ai said, officials had been extremely enthusiastic, and the entire application and planning process was “under government supervision”. According to Ai, a number of artists were invited to build new studios in this area of Shanghai because officials wanted to create a cultural area.
On 3 November 2010, Ai said the government had informed him two months earlier that the newly completed studio would be knocked down because it was illegal. Ai complained that this was unfair, as he was “the only one singled out to have my studio destroyed”. The Guardian reported Ai saying Shanghai municipal authorities were “frustrated” by documentaries on subjects they considered sensitive: two of the better known ones featured Shanghai resident Feng Zhenghu, who lived in forced exile for three months in Narita Airport, Tokyo; another well-known documentary focused on Yang Jia, who murdered six Shanghai police officers.
In the end, the party took place without Ai’s presence; his supporters feasted on river crab, an allusion to “harmony”, and a euphemism used to jeer official censorship. Ai was released from house arrest the next day.
Like other activists and intellectuals, Ai was prevented from leaving China in late 2010. Ai suggested that the authorities wanted to prevent him from attending the ceremony in December 2010 to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to fellow dissident Liu Xiaobo. Ai said that he had not been invited to the ceremony, and was attempting to travel to South Korea for a meeting when he was told that he could not leave for reasons of national security.
In the evening of 11 January 2011, Ai’s studio was demolished in a surprise move by the local government.
2011 arrest
On 3 April 2011, Ai was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport just before catching a flight to Hong Kong and his studio facilities were searched. A police contingent of approximately 50 officers came to his studio, threw a cordon around it and searched the premises. They took away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer; along with Ai, police also detained eight staff members and Ai’s wife, Lu Qing. Police also visited the mother of Ai’s two-year-old son. While state media originally reported on 6 April that Ai was arrested at the airport because “his departure procedures were incomplete,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 7 April that Ai was arrested under investigation for alleged economic crimes. Then, on 8 April, police returned to Ai’s workshop to examine his financial affairs. On 9 April, Ai’s accountant, as well as studio partner Liu Zhenggang and driver Zhang Jingsong, disappeared, while Ai’s assistant Wen Tao has remained missing since Ai’s arrest on 3 April. Ai’s wife said that she was summoned by the Beijing Chaoyang district tax bureau, where she was interrogated about his studio’s tax on 12 April. South China Morning Post reports that Ai received at least two visits from the police, the last being on 31 March – three days before his detention – apparently with offers of membership to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. A staff member recalled that Ai had mentioned receiving the offer earlier, “[but Ai] didn’t say if it was a membership of the CPPCC at the municipal or national level, how he responded or whether he accepted it or not.”
On 24 February, amid an online campaign for Middle East-style protests in major Chinese cities by overseas dissidents, Ai posted on his Twitter account: “I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!”
Response to Ai’s arrest
See also: Free Ai Weiwei street art campaignAnalysts and other activists said Ai had been widely thought to be untouchable, but Nicholas Bequelin from Human Rights Watch suggested that his arrest, calculated to send the message that no one would be immune, must have had the approval of someone in the top leadership. International governments, human rights groups and art institutions, among others, called for Ai’s release, while Chinese officials did not notify Ai’s family of his whereabouts.
State media started describing Ai as a “deviant and a plagiarist” in early 2011. The China Daily subsidiary, the Global Times editorial on 6 April 2011 attacked Ai, saying “Ai Weiwei likes to do something ‘others dare not do.’ He has been close to the red line of Chinese law. Objectively speaking, Chinese society does not have much experience in dealing with such persons. However, as long as Ai Weiwei continuously marches forward, he will inevitably touch the red line one day.” Two days later, the journal scorned Western media for questioning Ai’s charge as a “catch-all crime”, and denounced the use of his political activism as a “legal shield” against everyday crimes. It said “Ai’s detention is one of the many judicial cases handled in China every day. It is pure fantasy to conclude that Ai’s case will be handled specially and unfairly.” Frank Ching expressed in the South China Morning Post that how the Global Times could radically shift its position from one-day to the next was reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland
Michael Sheridan of The Times suggested that Ai had offered himself to the authorities on a platter with some of his provocative art, particularly photographs of himself nude with only a toy alpaca hiding his modesty – with a caption『草泥马挡中央』 (“grass mud horse covering the middle”). The term possesses a double meaning in Chinese: one possible interpretation was given by Sheridan as: “Fuck your mother, the party central committee”.
Ming Pao in Hong Kong reacted strongly to the state media’s character attack on Ai, saying that authorities had employed “a chain of actions outside the law, doing further damage to an already weak system of laws, and to the overall image of the country.” Pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, Wen Wei Po, announced that Ai was under arrest for tax evasion, bigamy and spreading indecent images on the internet, and vilified him with multiple instances of strong rhetoric. Supporters said “the article should be seen as a mainland media commentary attacking Ai, rather than as an accurate account of the investigation.”
The United States and European Union protested Ai’s detention. The international arts community also mobilised petitions calling for the release of Ai: “1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei” was organized by Creative Time of New York that calls for artists to bring chairs to Chinese embassies and consulates around the world on 17 April 2011, at 1 pm local time “to sit peacefully in support of the artist’s immediate release.” Artists in Hong Kong, Germany and Taiwan demonstrated and called for Ai to be released.
One of the major protests by U.S. museums took place on 19 and 20 May when the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego organized a 24-hour silent protest in which volunteer participants, including community members, media, and museum staff, occupied two traditionally styled Chinese chairs for one-hour periods. The 24-hour sit-in referenced Ai’s sculpture series, Marble Chair, two of which were on view and were subsequently acquired for the Museum’s permanent collection.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the International Council of Museums, which organised petitions, said they had collected more than 90,000 signatures calling for the release of Ai. On 13 April 2011, a group of European intellectuals led by Václav Havel had issued an open letter to Wen Jiabao, condemning the arrest and demanding the immediate release of Ai. The signatories include Ivan Klíma, Jiří Gruša, Jáchym Topol, Elfriede Jelinek, Adam Michnik, Adam Zagajewski, Helmuth Frauendorfer; Bei Ling (Chinese:贝岭), a Chinese poet in exile drafted and also signed the open letter.
On 16 May 2011, the Chinese authorities allowed Ai’s wife to visit him briefly. Liu Xiaoyuan, his attorney and personal friend, reported that Wei was in good physical condition and receiving treatment for his chronic diabetes and hypertension; he was not in a prison or hospital but under some form of house arrest.
He is the subject of the 2012 documentary film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, directed by American filmmaker Alison Klayman, which received a special jury prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and opened the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, North America’s largest documentary festival, in Toronto on 26 April 2012.
Release
On 22 June 2011, the Chinese authorities released Ai from jail after almost three months’ detention on charges of tax evasion. Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd. (Chinese: 北京发课文化公司), a company Ai controlled, had allegedly evaded taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents. State media also reports that Ai was granted bail on account of Ai’s “good attitude in confessing his crimes”, willingness to pay back taxes, and his chronic illnesses. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, he is prohibited from leaving Beijing without permission for one year. Ai’s supporters widely viewed his detention as retaliation for his vocal criticism of the government. On 23 June 2011, professor Wang Yujin of China University of Political Science and Law stated that the release of Ai on bail shows that the Chinese government could not find any solid evidence of Ai’s alleged “economic crime”. On 24 June 2011, Ai told a Radio Free Asia reporter that he was thankful for the support of the Hong Kong public, and praised Hong Kong’s conscious society. Ai also mentioned that his detention by the Chinese regime was hellish (Chinese: 九死一生), and stressed that he is forbidden to say too much to reporters.
After his release, his sister gave some details about his detention condition to the press, explaining that he was subjected to a kind of psychological torture: he was detained in a tiny room with constant light, and two guards were set very close to him at all times, and watched him constantly. In November, Chinese authorities were again investigating Ai and his associates, this time under the charge of spreading pornography. Lu was subsequently questioned by police, and released after several hours though the exact charges remain unclear. In January 2012, in its International Review issue Art in America magazine featured an interview with Ai Weiwei at his home in China. J.J. Camille (the pen name of a Chinese-born writer living in New York), “neither a journalist nor an activist but simply an art lover who wanted to talk to him” had travelled to Beijing the previous September to conduct the interview and to write about his visit to “China’s most famous dissident artist” for the magazine.
On 21 June 2012, Ai’s bail was lifted. Although he is allowed to leave Beijing, the police informed him that he is still prohibited from traveling to other countries because he is “suspected of other crimes,” including pornography, bigamy and illicit exchange of foreign currency. Until 2015, he remained under heavy surveillance and restrictions of movement, but continues to criticize through his work. In July 2015, he was given a passport and may travel abroad.
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THIS IS A MUST READ PIECE BY @aiww and has important lessons for us here in the US Ai Weiwei: How Censorship Works https://t.co/mYRoSGlxa0
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/dgatterdam/status/861232191388385281
People feign ignorance and speak in ambiguities.
The content offered by the Chinese state media, after its processing by political censors, is not free information. It is information that has been chosen, filtered and assigned its place, inevitably restricting the free and independent will of readers and viewers.
sounds like ie: school.. esp when we claim stuvoice .. spinach or rock ness
The harm of a censorship system is not just that it impoverishes intellectual life; it also fundamentally distorts the rational order in which the natural and spiritual worlds are understood. The censorship system relies on robbing a person of the self-perception that one needs in order to maintain an independent existence. It cuts off one’s access to independence and happiness.
Whenever the state controls or blocks information, it not only reasserts its absolute power; it also elicits from the people whom it rules a voluntary submission to the system and an acknowledgment of its dominion. This, in turn, supports the axiom of the debased: Accept dependency in return for practical benefits
voluntary compliance ness.. killing us
begs we do this first: free art-ists..for (blank)’s sake…a nother way
The act of kowtowing to power in order to receive small pleasures may seem minor; but without it, the brutal assault of the censorship system would not be possible.
For people who accept this passive position toward authority, “getting by” becomes the supreme value. They smile, bow and nod their heads, and such behavior usually leads to lifestyles that are comfortable, trouble free and even cushy. This attitude is essentially defensive on their part. It is obvious that in any dispute, if one side is silenced, the words of the other side will go unquestioned
That’s what we have here in China: The self-silenced majority, sycophants of a powerful regime, resentful of people like me who speak out, are doubly bitter because they know that their debasement comes by their own hand. Thus self-defense also becomes self-comfort.
The system rewards ordinary people for their cooperation automatically; there is no need for them to compete for the rewards.
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@povdocs
For Ai Weiwei, free speech is a cause worth fighting for. Stream ‘Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case’ FREE on @PBS. to.pbs.org/2r2yIyG #MyAPALife
1 hr doc – oct 2015 – A stunning and stirring documentary by Andreas Johnsen shows how the government’s attempts to silence Ai Weiwei have turned him into China’s most powerful artist and an irrepressible voice for free speech and human rights around the globe.
6 min – we’re all victimized by the system
8 min – everything is about taking orders
30 min – i think.. if i don’t show my voice.. if i don’t act how i’ve always believed .. then i think i’m dead already
38 min – i will make the whole thing change.. just one month.. it’s enough
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There’s no refugee crisis, but only human crisis…
@aiww in @narodnigalerie #Prague /#Praha shows Low Of The Journey
https://t.co/8pU5geuzD5 https://t.co/Z9RHknQzXp
http://www.ngprague.cz/en/exposition-detail/ai-weiwei/
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/altPRAGUEguide/status/868080372499849217
Weiwei pays a powerful tribute to the human tragedy of the present moment as well as to humankind’s eternal desire for home and a sense of a belonging.
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艾未未 Ai Weiwei (@aiww) tweeted at 5:02 AM – 28 May 2017 :
Trump, Ai Weiwei and Israel: The Clash of Ideologies https://t.co/OWC3S2uOI9(http://twitter.com/aiww/status/868784637241380865?s=17)
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艾未未 Ai Weiwei (@aiww) tweeted at 5:17 AM – 3 Jun 2017 :
https://t.co/QKbTi0uZNR (http://twitter.com/aiww/status/870962690646257664?s=17)
explore the meaning of public space in our surveillance-laden world, referencing the story of Hansel and Gretel in which the children lose their way and feel a sense of menace in a space they know and trust.
Galleria Continua (@GContinua) tweeted at 2:21 AM – 7 Jun 2017 :
Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron turn the Park Avenue Armory into a panopticon playground @aiww @ParkAveArmory https://t.co/lq0DQdB3Xk (http://twitter.com/GContinua/status/872367954150739968?s=17)
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艾未未 Ai Weiwei (@aiww) tweeted at 3:03 AM on Tue, Jun 20, 2017:
Today, I hold in my mind each face, each story, every bit of humanity I have encountered along the way. #WorldRefugeeDay #HUMANFLOW https://t.co/vGqP4qPrbX
(https://twitter.com/aiww/status/877089427776049152?s=03)
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Michelle Peterie (@MichPeterie) tweeted at 4:12 PM on Tue, Jun 27, 2017:
Stunning installation by @aiww: 3,500 salvaged refugee life jackets displayed in windows of Kunsthal Charlottenborg
https://t.co/tzhvjhLT5w https://t.co/FyIUondFOP
(https://twitter.com/MichPeterie/status/879824807524581380?s=03)
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Vox (@voxdotcom) tweeted at 3:15 AM – 28 Jun 2017 :
Ai Weiwei has become a symbol of dissidence worldwide. It shows in his art. https://t.co/cZX65Joa4y(http://twitter.com/voxdotcom/status/879991517519237120?s=17)
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Sreejith (@365newsbreak) tweeted at 2:24 AM – 28 Jun 2017 :
Chinese artist @aiww creates portraits of political prisoners using more than 1 million Lego bricks https://t.co/XWyZjWuO7z https://t.co/aliWgRS5mX (http://twitter.com/365newsbreak/status/879978890696900608?s=17)
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drifting (doc)
Dazed (@Dazed) tweeted at 10:00 PM – 27 Jun 2017 :
A new doc traces @aiww’s journey into the refugee crisis: https://t.co/h85jyDwBIThttps://t.co/De4isQI22t (http://twitter.com/Dazed/status/879912241327243265?s=17)
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human flow
The Art Newspaper (@TheArtNewspaper) tweeted at 3:41 AM – 4 Aug 2017 :
Ai Weiwei’s refugee film Human Flow picked up by @amazon https://t.co/tigv78O4EF @aiww @AmazonStudios @la_Biennale https://t.co/sftqiPvxGG (http://twitter.com/TheArtNewspaper/status/893406507219521537?s=17)
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Grey Cross Studios (@GreyCrossStudio) tweeted at 6:02 PM – 9 Aug 2017 :
#AiWeiwei remakes with his son the odyssey of his father @aiww
https://t.co/GN5d57iY04#art #artist (http://twitter.com/GreyCrossStudio/status/895435131594227712?s=17)
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Gianluca Costantini (@channeldraw) tweeted at 2:35 AM – 10 Aug 2017 :
Ai Weiwei – Human Flow
#BiennaleCinema2017 @la_Biennale @aiww https://t.co/2NBJ7AE0CB
#Venezia74 #Venezia #Italy https://t.co/HJ9RUDpkxk (http://twitter.com/channeldraw/status/895564182669541376?s=17)
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jon fb share
From the review:
“”It helps, of course, that the film is such an extraordinary feat – a sweeping humanitarian epic with its feet on the ground and dirt under its nails.
In one memorable shot, taken by a drone over a camp in Iraq, the beige tents are arranged like some vast abstract canvas. Then it drops by degrees to show us all the people who live there.””
He’s the dissident artist, at odds with his homeland; jailed for 81 days back in 2011 and now, for all practical purposes, living in exile in Berlin. ArtReview magazine once called him “the most powerful artist in the world”, a visionary who has taken a lifetime of social activism and conjured it into a kind of continuous performance piece.
All day long, the media ask me if I have shown the film to the refugees: ‘When are the refugees going to see the film?’ But that’s the wrong question. The purpose is to show it to people of influence; people who are in a position to help and who have a responsibility to help. The refugees who need help – they don’t need to see the film. They need dry shoes. They need soup.”
Ai winces at the memory. “Yeah, that was the worst feeling. That really got me. Because [if] you’re passionate, you think you mean what you say. You tell these people that you’re the same as them. But you are lying because you are not the same. Your situation is different; you must leave them. And that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”
We all have a short life. We have only a moment to speak out or to present what little skills we have. And if everybody does that, maybe the temperature changes.”
facil self-talk as data.. as the day..
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
And as he gained in confidence, his activism crept into the art to the point where the two elements became indistinguishable from each other. “All creative activism, if it works well, is a work of art,” he tells me. “The same way that every good work of art, if it concerns itself with reality and politics, is a form of activism. Sometimes, yes, they are separate. But maybe not for me. I was born into all that. I am used to it now.”
he hounded them over their listless response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, documenting the names of every student who perished and mounting a huge installation of 9,000 children’s backpacks. For his trouble, he has been thrown into jail and punched by police. When the blow was revealed to have caused a bleed on his brain, he filmed his medical treatment and posted the picture on Twitter. In this way, perhaps, even the plastic bag of his blood becomes an Ai Weiwei work of art.
because my father was a poet. He brought me up on Whitman, Neruda and Rimbaud. All that made me feel there was another possibility, and that struggle means freedom. That, I think, is the revenge of life.”
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艾未未 Ai Weiwei (@aiww) tweeted at 7:12 PM – 28 Sep 2017 :
Ai Weiwei on the need for humanity in the world’s refugee crisis | National Post https://t.co/Oaku62FRVr(http://twitter.com/aiww/status/913572094176309248?s=17)
Ai bemoaned the U.S. administration’s plans to cap refugee admissions to 45,000 in the coming year, but says it reflects a broader antagonism in the West that must be confronted.
The anti-immigrant stance trumpeted by U.S. president Donald Trump is an unfortunate product of our democracy, says Ai.
“He is a true product of the West, of democracy,” Ai said Thursday as he met with several reporters, taking the time to post tweets and Instagram on his smartphone between chats.
“We have to admit that. By admitting that then we see what is the potential danger.”
Ai says the U.S. has a particular responsibility to offer safe haven to those fleeing war, hunger and persecution.
“I think all those far-right movements really show the nations which lack in the confidence and lack understanding of what humanity is about. To just simply push people away and to refuse to accept people who are in danger … is such a shame.
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Democracy Now! (@democracynow) tweeted at 6:34 AM – 9 Oct 2017 :
Now at https://t.co/Xup8cdtnFB: World-renowned artist & activist @aiww talks about his new documentary on refugees, @HumanFlowMovie https://t.co/NAOfpM7kVq (http://twitter.com/democracynow/status/917367672681230336?s=17)
on his dad – academics put into labor camps for re education
After I came out, many people questioned me on how—what it’s like being in that kind of condition. So, I found out language is very difficult to describe it, so I made an exact same situation in a sculpture, or installation. And every detail fits exactly like the reality.
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Vista (@VVVista) tweeted at 4:27 AM – 25 Nov 2017 :
Could be an @aiww installation but no, this is what happens when supply of shared economy cycles outstrips demand https://t.co/kAMzcpOehY(http://twitter.com/VVVista/status/934382992511946753?s=17)
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Ai Weiwei laat een rode grens door Amsterdam lopen. De Chinese kunstenaar wil ons laten nadenken over grenzen: wie bepaalt ze, wie mag ze oversteken en wie wordt er geweigerd? https://t.co/JEd4FFmv1W https://t.co/D9cVmhMjCR
Ai Weiwei shows a red border by Amsterdam walk. The Chinese artist wants us to think about limits: who determines who may they cross over them, and who will get declined? nos.nl/nieuwsuur/arti…
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/Nieuwsuur/status/936565793936019456
borders/territory.. how we look at ourself/others.. and what is inbetween
we set up borders.. we push away the others..
think about the thin line in our life/ideas/thinking
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PEN International (@pen_int) tweeted at 6:15 AM – 2 Feb 2018 :
‘Refugees must be seen to be an essential part of our shared humanity’ – Read @aiww’s powerful article on the refugee crisis https://t.co/xuev5Ubnwa(http://twitter.com/pen_int/status/959414919581093889?s=17)
The refugee crisis isn’t about refugees. It’s about us
I was a child refugee, writes Ai Weiwei, Chinese artist and activist. I know how it feels to live in a camp, robbed of my humanity. Refugees must be seen to be an essential part of our shared humanity
I was born in 1957, the same year China purged more than 300,000 intellectuals, including writers, teachers, journalists and whoever dared to criticise the newly established communist government. As part of a series of campaigns led by what was known as the anti-rightist movement, these intellectuals were sent to labour camps for “re-education”.
Because my father, Ai Qing, was the most renowned poet in China then, the government made a symbolic example of him.
My experience clarifies why I identify so deeply with all these unfortunate people who are pushed into extreme conditions by outside forces they are powerless to resist.
everyone is not free.. imagine a turtle
the condition of many refugees is a direct result of the greed inherent in a global capitalist system.
The refugee crisis is not about refugees, rather, it is about us. Our prioritisation of financial gain over people’s struggle for the necessities of life is the primary cause of much of this crisis.
Establishing the understanding that we all belong to one humanity is the most essential step for how we might continue to coexist on this sphere we call Earth. I know what it feels like to be a refugee and to experience the dehumanisation that comes with displacement from home and country. There are many borders to dismantle, but the most important are the ones within our own hearts and minds – these are the borders that are dividing humanity from itself.
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CNNMoney Switzerland (@CNNMoneyCH) tweeted at 4:58 AM – 18 Mar 2018 :
He says he’ll never be a free man… As @aiww released his first feature length documentary @HumanFlowMovie, he reveals how his own background helped him tap into the global refugee crisis. @tanyakoenigcnn met the Chinese artist to discuss the crisis. https://t.co/dWCGGNa8eKhttps://t.co/vYbI4BO0nm(http://twitter.com/CNNMoneyCH/status/975325532219957248?s=17)
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Jennifer Grimm (@jennifer__grimm) tweeted at 10:27 PM – 24 Mar 2018 :
“The most fragmenting thing that has ever happened to human society is social media”— @aiww (http://twitter.com/jennifer__grimm/status/977763808839073792?s=17)
perhaps most revealing thing of our fragmentation/intoxication..
begs we get to the roots of healing
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Ai Weiwei’s Little Blue Book on the Refugee Crisis @aiww
https://t.co/aF5dpv0UjR#AiWeiwei #RefugeeCrisis #LittleBlueBook
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/GreyCrossStudio/status/988568290699202560
suggested to library to purchase.. thank you library
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USA for UNHCR (@UNRefugeeAgency) tweeted at 4:00 PM – 28 Jul 2018 :
Artist and activist @aiww speaks out about the #globalrefugeecrisis, the heartbreaking effects it has on the 68.5 million displaced people around the world and the inspiration behind his documentary, @HumanFlowMovie.
https://t.co/6ipeffyaMS (http://twitter.com/UNRefugeeAgency/status/1023327262521937922?s=17)
(29 min video)
on optimism.. hard to have when you see the people.. ie: every 2 sec somebody forced out of home.. now.. original problem plus climate change
3 min – one clear common factor: all being forced out.. give up everything.. just to seek safe ground
europe is only 2% of refugees
5 min – on what can ordinary people do to help..? 1\ crisis caused by us 2\ they are ordinary too..
11 min – doing the film came from my personal curiosity.. opp for me to learn
21 min – situation is worse globally
bangladesh is an unthinkable situation
23 min – on elephants.. kind of like refugees.. elephants for work.. trained as labor.. now jobless..
24 min – i’ve never finished one project in my life.. so i don’t know what’s next
25 mi – why end film w life jackets..? today.. we’re still being motionless.. and dare to even ask the questions.. of what kind of role we’re playing in politics..t
28 min – what artists influence you.. i’m still searching for someone to influence me
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Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) tweeted at 1:33 AM – 4 Aug 2018 :
Artist and political activist @aiww says his art studio in Beijing was demolished without warning.
https://t.co/cLYkuYTlV6 (http://twitter.com/TwitterMoments/status/1025646010754785286?s=17)AFP news agency (@AFP) tweeted at 3:17 PM – 3 Aug 2018 :
An excavator shatters the windows of Ai Wewei’s largest studio while workers hustle away his art, preparing to demolish the old Beijing factory three years after the artist and government critic left China https://t.co/HkQStaANhJ https://t.co/k1qr2c5PGh (http://twitter.com/AFP/status/1025490742351781888?s=17)Priya Khanchandani (@Hiyapriya) tweeted at 4:08 AM – 5 Aug 2018 :
They can destroy your studio, but your art will prevail, Ai Weiwei @aiww
https://t.co/WhtPwP10Hf (http://twitter.com/Hiyapriya/status/1026047242627690496?s=17)
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You have to look your enemy in the face
[https://bigthink.com/videos/ai-weiwei-you-have-to-look-your-enemy-in-the-face]
i have to get the solid answer myself rather than listen to other people
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Liz Douglas (@DizzyLizDouglas) tweeted at 10:07 AM on Thu, Aug 23, 2018:
I love this piece by @aiww on the mutability of our identities, and how they are shaped via individual place and experiences within the global community. “What is it to be human? I believe there is no single immutable answer.” Lovely. https://t.co/uFj5UPbAEE
(https://twitter.com/DizzyLizDouglas/status/1032660681428852736?s=03)We humans are what we conceive ourselves to be, by which I mean two things: what we willourselves to be and what we say we are. Our self-conceptions are, in turn, responses to conditions that we encounter in our environments, and those conditions constantly change with time and place.
Some are dying while others are growing extraordinarily strong.
Such changes can be mind-boggling. They can make it hard to remember where home is, to recognize language and customs that we once took for granted and to figure out where we now belong. The question “What is a human being?” or “What does it mean to be human?” gets an entirely new face. The answers today will have to be different from the answers of the past.
Humankind includes every single one of us.
unconditionally .. everyone
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艾未未 Ai Weiwei (@aiww) tweeted at 5:31 AM – 2 Apr 2019 :
‘The Rest’ Review: Ai Weiwei’s Emotive Refugee-Crisis Documentary – Variety https://t.co/0RyJB20Vvr(http://twitter.com/aiww/status/1113041181376643072?s=17)Ai Weiwei follows ‘Human Flow’ with a second, shorter documentary on the European migrant crisis that aims squarely for the heart.
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via jerry fb share:
each one..
At the Ai Weiwei show in Düsseldorf in the “sunflower seeds” piece. I didn’t get it until I watched the video, the tiny blue square to the left of the door in my picture below. And I just wept and wept. This is the video: https://youtu.be/PueYywpkJW8
14 min video – Sunflower Seeds | Tate
i always think art is a tool to set up new questions.. to create a basic structure which can be open to possibilities
seeds made of porcelain – employing people have gone bankrupt
10 min – ordinary people.. loyal to the party is the sunflower seeds.. so sunflowers supported the whole revolution.. spiritually and in material ways
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never sorry (doc)
shows how he uses twitter ie: all my decisions are made in a second on twitter.. ie: midnight.. tomorrow we’ll have a party.. this is really beautiful
party (demolition of building he just built) goes on w/o him.. reflection of his footprints/following here
sunflower seeds show eccentricity.. everyone in china diff..
2011 – weiwei disappears for 81 days – authorities have him.. interrogating him in undisclosed place
‘i think it’s a responsibility of any artist to protect freedom of expression’
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SophieCo (@SophieCo_RT) tweeted at 2:06 AM – 15 Nov 2019 :
One of the brightest stars of today’s art scene, Ai Weiwei @aiww is sceptical of contemporary art himself. Find out why in my latest show: https://t.co/5glML0yS55https://t.co/Mb3dWcc9hN (http://twitter.com/SophieCo_RT/status/1195266786138230784?s=17)8 min – alone in terms of intellectual judgment.. to really come up from own experience.. questioning the legitimate of power
9 min – nobody can buy me.. i don’t like to be decorative
10 min – i’m moving to anywhere.. i’m a refugee of the world.. i just can’t go back to china.. anywhere is the same.. i’m not an easy guest
12 min – yes.. there’s such place on planet where true freedom.. in my heart.. i don’t think will ever be a place
13 min – society expects artist to be part of propaganda in china.. in west.. individual encouraged to do own thing.. but.. nothing relevant comes out of it.. people not questioning own conditions
15 min – what’s in my art is desperately seeking the truth.. that contemporary practice has lost.. so they don’t understand what i’m doing
16 min – they see my art as against authority.. and uncomfortableness.. underestimated me.. see me more as a rock star..
17 min – (why is govt afraid of art).. art provides a questioning of value judgment.. shaking foundation of legitimacy of govt..
22 min – (you have to criticize those who feed you.. do you see that dilemma).. no one feeds me.. i don’t care of if they accept me or not
24 min – if you self dig enough .. you have to make a political statement.. because we’re all created by system.. w/o questioning those establishment.. can’t really create true self
25 min – i think there is no art for sake of art.. i think art is always being used by diff kind of ideology.. also always individual announcement in the practice.. just like the real world
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Louisiana Channel (@LouisianaChann) tweeted at 3:18 AM – 11 Dec 2019 :
“Be a real person.” Get unwavering advice from the world-renowned Chinese artist and filmmaker Ai Weiwei in this short new video: https://t.co/pmCS7JlB5W @aiww @FaurschouFF @Lisson_Gallery @hetzlergallery @artnews https://t.co/UwJRldJhzM (http://twitter.com/LouisianaChann/status/1204707128168112128?s=17)
40 sec clip – advice to the young
be a real person.. use imagination.. have some skills.. most important.. to have clear value about the world point view.. only by doing that.. we can not be lost in practice
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@aiww brilliant short interview about his great documentary #Coronation now on Vimeo on demand. https://t.co/GRSV7HzOts
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/lupecz/status/1298530188993732610The film clearly tells how efficient an authoritarian power can be.
Contrast this with how efficiently they seized information and prevented any from leaking out. They are in total control
But what is the inefficiency of that state? Because there is such a titanic structure to control a human’s mind and activities, the result is an entire society lacking true will, passion, and imagination. The people are not motivated by intuition or goodwill, but in accordance with the party’s direction and policy. This kind of society can never truly have full humanity, but rather a kind of modern slavery which poses a danger to the civilized world.
I would not say China has done a better job than any other nation, even if they limited the number of infections and deaths. The real number has not been revealed to the public. We may never know what truly happened in China. Even if we accept the provided numbers as fact, China has sacrificed everyone’s human rights to achieve certain numbers. Personal freedom simply does not exist in this society. China’s numbers are low, but the cost is much higher than anywhere else.
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be you. 
